Summer Speedos | Field Notes: Driveway Conversations

Speaker: 00:00:05

Welcome to Summer Speedos from Neighborly, our short in between season

Speaker: 00:00:09

series, while Shannon takes a break from her regular interviews. I'm

Speaker: 00:00:13

Johan, the producer of the show. Some episodes are field notes recorded

Speaker: 00:00:17

outside in ordinary places where care actually happens. Others

Speaker: 00:00:20

are story field notes, more cinematic reflections that start with a story

Speaker: 00:00:24

from history or real life. Either way, we're paying attention to the small,

Speaker: 00:00:28

ordinary ways care, faith, courage and community show up around us.

Speaker: 00:00:32

So grab a cold drink or head out on that bike ride, walk or hike.

Speaker: 00:00:36

Enjoy this year's edition of Summer Speedos from Neighbourly.

Speaker: 00:00:42

Hey, everyone. Johan here, out on another walk in my

Speaker: 00:00:46

wonderful neighborhood, making some observations as we do our Summer

Speaker: 00:00:49

Speedos series. The in between season episodes that,

Speaker: 00:00:53

you know, just remind us how and to actually love

Speaker: 00:00:57

our neighbors better. I'm out on a walk

Speaker: 00:01:01

and there's a lot of driveways in our neighborhood.

Speaker: 00:01:05

And I thought about driveway conversations. I have them a lot

Speaker: 00:01:09

with my neighbors. And I find it really odd that the most meaningful part

Speaker: 00:01:12

of a driveway conversation usually happens after someone

Speaker: 00:01:16

says, anyway, I should let you go. I don't know why this

Speaker: 00:01:20

is true, but it just is. You can stand there for 10

Speaker: 00:01:23

minutes talking about weather, the lawn, the schedule,

Speaker: 00:01:27

the price of groceries, and whether that one intersection

Speaker: 00:01:31

has become a civic experiment and patience. Then someone

Speaker: 00:01:34

shifts their keys and says, well, I should probably get

Speaker: 00:01:38

going. And that's when the real sentence appears.

Speaker: 00:01:42

Actually, it's been a rough week, or

Speaker: 00:01:46

my mom is not doing well, or we're

Speaker: 00:01:49

pretty tired, or the classic quiet one, yeah,

Speaker: 00:01:53

we're figuring some stuff out. The driveway conversation is

Speaker: 00:01:57

one of the great mysteries of neighbourly life. It

Speaker: 00:02:00

exists in the space between leaving and staying.

Speaker: 00:02:04

And sometimes that's where people tell the truth, not the whole

Speaker: 00:02:08

truth, not all at once, just a little more than

Speaker: 00:02:12

what they planned. Those moments are easy to miss

Speaker: 00:02:16

if we're always rushing to the next thing. And to be

Speaker: 00:02:19

clear, sometimes you really do need to go. Boundaries are

Speaker: 00:02:23

good, supper burns, children require

Speaker: 00:02:26

retrieval, Meetings exist despite our best

Speaker: 00:02:30

efforts as a civilization. But sometimes

Speaker: 00:02:34

care looks like staying that extra two minutes. Not

Speaker: 00:02:37

forever, just long enough to notice the shift in someone's

Speaker: 00:02:41

voice. Just long enough to ask, do you want to say more

Speaker: 00:02:45

about that? That question can be a small

Speaker: 00:02:49

doorway. It tells someone, I heard you.

Speaker: 00:02:53

I'm not just waiting for my turn to speak. I'm not rushing past

Speaker: 00:02:57

this. I think Jesus was remarkably attentive to

Speaker: 00:03:00

those doorways, to those moments. People came to him

Speaker: 00:03:04

with one thing, and he often heard a deeper thing. Underneath.

Speaker: 00:03:08

Woman at the well is a prime example, a question became

Speaker: 00:03:12

a conversation, a request became a

Speaker: 00:03:15

restoration. A passing moment became

Speaker: 00:03:19

holy ground. That doesn't mean every driveway chat

Speaker: 00:03:22

needs to become a counseling session. Please don't turn the

Speaker: 00:03:26

cul de sac into a therapeutic intake course.

Speaker: 00:03:30

But it does mean that we can listen. Listen for those

Speaker: 00:03:34

small openings, the doorways, the

Speaker: 00:03:37

sigh before someone changes the subject. Maybe

Speaker: 00:03:41

it's a pause after I'm fine. The little sentence

Speaker: 00:03:45

that sounds casual but carries more weight than it first appears.

Speaker: 00:03:49

This week. Maybe practice lingering once.

Speaker: 00:03:53

Not with everyone, and not every time.

Speaker: 00:03:56

Just once. Stay two extra minutes when you

Speaker: 00:04:00

normally would rush and walk away. Ask one follow up

Speaker: 00:04:03

question. Give someone enough room to say a little more.

Speaker: 00:04:08

You may be surprised what opens up in the space between

Speaker: 00:04:11

I should go and actually leaving.

Speaker: 00:04:15

Hey, that's the field note. Keep noticing.

Speaker: 00:04:27

It.